


Defining Moments in Fatherhood

by trinaest



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-19
Updated: 2011-03-19
Packaged: 2017-10-17 03:07:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/172258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trinaest/pseuds/trinaest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fathers have altogether too much power to influence their daughters, Danny thinks. This is the single most terrifying thing he’s ever done--and he faces men with guns on a semi-regular basis, so he knows terrifying--and he can’t. He just can’t screw it up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Defining Moments in Fatherhood

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks, as always, to my best cheerleaders who push me to write whether or not they know anything about what I'm writing (Celli, Caro, Ivy, Lishan). Thank you to Celli for finding a canonical oops in the first draft and to Caro for telling me I need to post this. :D

Danny’s pretty sure that he will never get over this. He stares down at his daughter in her brand-new crib, in awe and more than a little scared. He’s not afraid of little things like, oh, holding his tiny baby or even changing her diaper (his family is huge, he’s had more than his share of babies and diaper-changing duties for a young guy with, until now, no children). No, what Danny is afraid of--terrified of, really--is simply screwing it up somehow. Getting it wrong, so wrong. Wrong enough that his daughter is damaged by how wrong Danny was.

You see, he knows what will happen if he gets it right. If he gets it right, Gracie will be strong, self-confident, the kind of woman people will admire for her independence and spirit.

Fathers have altogether too much power to influence their daughters, Danny thinks. This is the single most terrifying thing he’s ever done--and he faces men with guns on a semi-regular basis, so he knows terrifying--and he can’t. He just can’t screw it up.

Gracie’s arms are flailing and she encounters his hand where it’s dangling over her as he leans his elbows on the side of the crib. He moves his hand so that Gracie’s curls around his finger. When she squeezes it and holds on tight, the fears drop away--for now--and are replaced with a surge of love like he had never felt before meeting his daughter.

His beautiful baby girl fills Danny up until he feels like a much bigger man. Maybe he _can_ do this.

\-----

Seven years later, when he has to watch his daughter being dragged onto an airplane crying because she doesn’t want to leave her daddy, he thinks his heart will break so cleanly in two that he’ll never recover. He stands and stares at the door she’d gone through for far too long, tears streaming down his face.

Finally, he drags himself away and goes back to the house. The house he’d gotten back when Rachel and Stan decided to move to Hawaii, taking his daughter with them. It was once _their_ house, their home, and now it is far, far too empty. Now, god, they just moved 8000 miles away and how will he ever be a part of his daughter’s life again?

The last thing he wants is to become a once-a-year father. Then he really will turn into the failure he was afraid of when he’d first met his baby girl.

He wanders aimlessly through the house, through mostly-empty rooms, full of ghosts of happier times (and ghosts of many, many very loud, very destructive arguments), and suddenly realizes that this house is no longer a home. It will never be a home to him again, not with his daughter living halfway around the world.

That realization is all he needs to make a decision. Really, there’s no question now that he sees it, no question at all. No decision, even. He’ll sell this house, he’ll move to Hawaii, he’ll beg for a job with whatever shitty police departments there are on that godforsaken island until he finds one that will take him and he will be happy to be near his daughter.

He will not be erased from Gracie’s life. He will not allow himself to become a shadow of the man he became when his daughter was born. She is the most important thing in his life and he has no choice but to follow her.

\-----

The next time he has to watch his daughter walk out of his life ( _not forever_ , he hears someone else’s voice remind him), he does it in agony and joy simultaneously. She hugs him, gives him a watery smile and then turns to go, head up, poised and confident.

Danny is so proud he thinks he might burst, and so agitated that he is more glad than ever for the steadying presence at his side. He looks up at Steve, standing next to him, tall and rigid, like he’s standing at attention, like the Naval officer he used to be. Like the Naval officer he was when they first met. He reaches for Steve’s hand and Steve squeezes his reassuringly.

He turns back to watch Grace walk away and calls out, “Danno loves you, baby!” She turns her head so that he has one more glimpse of her beautiful face and calls back, “Love you too, Danno!” just as she disappears through the door.

Danny takes a deep breath, trying not to have another public breakdown in an airport, and is enveloped in strong, comforting arms. He buries his face in Steve’s chest and Steve leans down to whisper, “She’ll be back, Danno. She’ll be back for Christmas.”

“I know, I know.” He takes another deep breath, surrounded by the comforting and familiar smell of his husband, and then steps back slightly so he can look up into Steve’s face.

Steve brings a hand up to gently brush a tear from Danny’s face. “Your daughter is amazing.”

“ _Our_ daughter,” Danny corrects automatically.

“Our daughter is amazing,” Steve repeats, and smiles at Danny affectionately. “You did that, you know. You gave her what she needed to become the strong, confident young woman we just watched walk out that door.”

“Yeah,” Danny agrees, considering. “I guess I did it after all, didn’t I?”

This, he knows, is the most important accomplishment of his life. He just watched his baby girl leave him to go off to college and he is proud and relieved and, again, terrified, now that she’ll be too far away for his direct protection.

But he did it. He did it, somehow he managed not to screw her up. And for that, he feels nothing but joy. He smiles at Steve and they leave the airport, returning to a house filled with many of the happiest memories of his life. He might see ghosts left behind by his daughter’s absence, but he knows she’ll be back. It’s her home, too.


End file.
